


Boyfriends, Right?

by Gildedmuse



Category: Rent (2005), Rent - Larson
Genre: Canonical Character Death, First Time, Gift Fic, HIV/AIDS, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gildedmuse/pseuds/Gildedmuse
Summary: Mark and Roger have always been close enough, that sometimes people just make assumptions.





	Boyfriends, Right?

**Author's Note:**

> [Posted to lj in 2006. Fills the fafic100 prompt "lovers". A fic for ogiraffe who, hopefully, has entirly forgotten what she requested. ]

**Boyfriends, Right**

****  
  
"Ah... Don't you two make a cute couple...."  
  
"Fuck off, Cindy."  
  
This is all very normal conversation in the Cohen house. At least, it has become normal over the last two years. Since Mark "discovered" Roger, as his mom puts it, like Roger had been a lost talent just waiting to be found. Honestly, if anything it had been the shapeless Mark, an up incoming freshman with nothing to differentiate him from the rest of the suburbs, that got found. Roger stumbled upon him will trying to escape his dad's home, where he'd been banished for the summer. He saw this scrawny, blonde creature and asked, "Hey, you have a smoke?" Thus began Mark's decent into deviancy.  
  
Or, as his sister would not so artistically state it, gayness.  
  
"Mark and Roger, sitting in a tree," she sings as she leans against his doorway, smirking with that sort of confidence only an older sibling can. Cindy annoys the hell out of Mark with that smile of her, especially when she's just picked the lock to his room to get on his nerves. "F - U - C - K - I - "   
  
"Pervert!" he snaps, getting off the bed and storming over to the door. There had been a time when they were younger that Cindy and Mark had been best friends. Then they became teenagers, and now Mark can't stand the sight of his sister. She doesn't do a lot to help her cause, either.   
  
Cindy laughs, stepping back so that Mark can slam his door in her face. Not that this stops her from teasing him. That is what an older sister (even if it's only by a year) does, after all, is get under her younger brother's skin. "I'm the pervert? You're the one who has porn stashed under his bed."  
  
"I do not!" Mark yells, his cheeks burning. He doesn't blush a lot, but Cindy can always make him mad enough. "And we're not GAY!"  
  
"You have porn under your bed?" Roger is wearing this shit eating grin, sitting cross-legged on Mark's bed and just watching another quick scuffle between Mark and his sister. He's grown use to the small, meaningless fights like he's gotten use to staying in Mark's room. So much that Mark's mom swears there is an indentation where he's always sitting on Mark's bed.  
  
"No," Mark grumbles, glaring at Roger like he somehow made Cindy so annoying. He flops down on the covers next to his best friend, sighing loudly and wondering what he did to get stuck with such an frustrating creature for a sister. No one else has siblings this annoying!  
  
"Mom says she's going to be late!" Cindy yells through the door. "So we have to make our own dinner!"  
  
"Fuck! Off!" Mark yells, sitting up and glowering at the door to get his point across. Beside him, Roger is laughing, reaching behind him and pulling out the joint they'd been working on. Roger brought it with him when he came from New York, a little at first and now more once he started sharing. "Give me that," Mark says, snatching it from Roger and inhaling. It is corruption at it's finest.  
  
"You're sister funny as shit," Roger mutters, taking the joint from Mark the second he's got a lungful. Back and fourth, until they're burning their fingers. "And kinda hot in a geeky way. Like you."  
  
Mark isn't sure what exactly that means, but he knows it's gross for Roger to call his sister hot so he makes a nose and slaps at him. "Fuck you."  
  
Roger laughs again, head thrown back and body shaking with the low sound. He has this addictive laugh, dark and soft like when he sings, that he seems to only get when he's high. It always sounds good enough that Mark has to chuckle along. "So," Roger says, and again takes the joint back after Mark has hand enough breath. "You have porn under your bed or what?"  
  
"No," Mark says, the smoke escaping from his lips. He leans back, and Roger laughs as he nearly falls out the open window. "Shit... Stop laughing." He glares, but can't really manage it when Roger is laughing like that. "Why do you want to know so bad anyway? You wanna show me something?" It's weird. Before Roger, Mark wouldn't have talked to his friends like this. Yeah, okay, they joked about sex a lot, but Roger actually knows things and Mark doesn't feel like an idiot when he has to ask questions. Like about what a clit is, exactly. They're not talking about girls, though, just some porn. Which Mark doesn't own after his mom found some in his closet. He'd rather just stick to jerking off to pictures in his imagination than have his mom find more porn and sit him down to talk about it. He'd rather bleed to death in a slow, painful way than have that talk again.  
  
Roger takes a deep breath, laughing fading off even though he's still beaming. "Cause I'm horny," he explains, and just like that Roger starts to undo his jeans. This isn't weird to Mark, who is taking the joint from him before he gets it dirty. He's been in rooms with guys jerking off before. Peter got off in history class, once, just to prove he could. "Ever heard of mutual masturbation?" he asks, and already his underwear his down and cock out.  
  
Mark leans back, the smoke going out the window. He's sixteen and getting high in his bedroom. It makes him feel special, amazing, something more than every other kid on the block, even if they're all doing the same. "Mean like jerking off at the same time."  
  
"Not exactly." Mark is still tipped back, ends up yelping when a rough hand closes over the crotch of his jeans. Roger's laugh, deep and low and hot against his skin, is the only thing that keeps Mark from pushing him away. "What the fuck?" he asks, wide eyes and out of breath from the shock of being grabbed. It isn't even that it is a boy, just that Mark doesn't expect it to come out of nowhere like that.   
  
"Come on," Roger says, scooting closer to Mark without ever letting him go. It's a little unnerving, having Roger so close with his hand closed around Mark's crotch. "Better to have another hand do it."  
  
Mark still isn't sure about this, about having a guy like Roger so close. He looks really dangerous, suddenly, a lot like Mark's mom thought when she first had him to dinner. Mark never really thought so, but when he's this close he can see it. The gleam in his eyes and the way his smile twists up. Dangerous, is what comes to Mark's mind. He shakes that. No, Roger isn't dangerous. Roger is cool, and just because he's a little more different doesn't mean he's dangerous. "You want me to jerk you off?"  
  
"I'll do the same for you," Roger promises, squeezing Mark through his jeans and his cock starts to twitch. He isn't really used to anyone touching him and, yeah, maybe it really does feel better. Mark wouldn't really know. "Your mom and dad will be gone all day, right? Perfect fucking time to get off."  
  
That's all it is, just some getting off and so what if a friend helps him. Mark nods, staying still as Roger slips his jeans down just enough so that he can get a hold of Mark's cock, which jumps as his rough fingers slide against the over sensitive skin. Mark bites his lip, eyes going wide and he isn't really sure how to react with his best friend touching him. So he just sits there, kind of freaked out just like any normal suburban kid would be. "Come on," Roger says, grabbing Mark's hand and leading it over to his lap. Oh, oh yeah. Mutual.  
  
It's not even like it means anything. They are high and horny and teenage boy with all those needs. So Mark takes Roger's cock into his hand and Roger tightens his hold and they just do it. Not gay, just because someone else hand felt better and, God yes Roger's hand is rough and better than anything Mark could do to himself. Feels good enough that he ends up moaning, and he's never moaned before while jerking off but this is different and Mark is arching off the bed and into Roger's hand, his toes curling up in the sheets as this sparking heat shots through him.   
  
Then Roger leans in, nose bumping against Mark's and he tries to jerk back, but Roger's hand feels amazing and kept him close. "It's okay," Roger says, and even with his eyes fluttering closed Mark can see that cocky smile on his friend's face. "Everyone in the city does this sort of shit."  
  
It doesn't take much to convince Mark. Roger is everything Mark wants to be. An escape from his suburban life even while he is still trapped here in Scars-hell. He is this cool kid from the city and bohemian and rebellious. It is Mark's personal sixteen-year-old revolution to lean in and kiss him. Take that, ruling monarchy of the mainstream, he can kiss a guy and be okay with it.  
  
Of course, he doesn't even get to find out if he enjoys the kiss. The second he starts trusting Roger, lips pressed together and hot breath smelling like pot against his mouth, that very second the door swings open.  
  
"Oh my god," Cindy shrieks, and then the door slams shut again.  
  
"Shit." Mark jumps off the bed, rushing out to find his sister and explain before she can spill to mom. That is his first thought, and he doesn't even glance back to see what Roger is doing. He doesn't think he can really look at him ever again. "Cindy! Cindy, wait!"  
  
He finds her in the living room, a bright red color and staring wide eyed at the wall. "Cindy!" He says, breathless from... from a lot of things as he finally catches her. "It... It wasn't what it looks like."  
  
"Oh my God, Mark," she repeats again, and Mark hopes she ends up saying more than that. Calling on God doesn't seem like a good sign for her not telling their parents. "All those times I made fun of you two for acting so gay together... I was just teasing you!"  
  
"We weren't doing anything," Mark says, and her panicking isn't helping him to calm down. It isn't like he wanted his sister to see that. "I mean... We're not gay!"   
  
"So... So Roger and you are boyfriends, right?" She says, and he wonders if she is listening to him at all. "Oh, God... I can't believe my little brother has a boyfriend."  
  
What Mark really wants to do is start screaming that Roger isn't his boyfriend and Cindy is fucking out of her mind for thinking that. Mark honestly likes girls, and why can't she stop teasing them and just get that already? The screaming, though, it probably won't help his cause. Which is to make sure Cindy never, ever mentions this to their parents. Ever. "Just... Just don't tell mom and dad, okay?" he asks. Begs is more like it, because the last thing he wants is for his mom, who has already seen his porn, to find out that he jerks off. With Roger.  
  
"No," Cindy agrees, and at least Mark can relax even if she still looks like she's been scared for life. It's understandable. Mark would probably kill himself if he saw his sister having sex or something. "No, I won't tell them. God, Mark, mom would probably have a heart attack. Fuck! I think I'm having a heart attack!" She holds her hand over her heart. From his room, Mark hears Roger moaning and for a flash second he wants to be back there with him, but the horror on his sister face undoes any of that in an instant.  
  
The one good thing that came out of this is that Cindy never burst into his room again.

  
*

Mark - studious, honor role college student and brilliant paper writer with an unlimited future - lives for the weekends. He plans his whole schedule around them, refusing to take any Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes so that he'll have two extra days to go down to New York City. The two hour trip by bus can get annoying, just sitting with all these strangers as they watch dull scenery of the highways roll by, but Mark isn't in it for the scenery. He's in it for Roger.  
  
"He's your boyfriend, right?" Benny, his roommate up at Brown, asks as he watches Mark pack his bag for yet another one of his weekend trips. The only reasons he hasn't gone insane at this institution of higher learning (that, to Mark, feels exactly like an institution, although he'd leave off the part about learning) He's left every weekend so far to get down to New York, and when he comes back he is always talking about the same guy. Roger, some guy in some band. It isn't really that interesting to Benny, but after two months of hearing about him something is bound to stick.  
  
A sock gets thrown at Benny's head, which should just about tell him the answer. "Shut up," Mark tells him as he zips his bag up. He isn't really upset, it just seems like a natural reaction to not let Benny tease him about Roger. Besides, he sounds like his sister when he says stuff like that.  
  
Benny just throws the sock right back at him, pegging Mark between the shoulders. He laughs as he flops back onto his bed, watching Mark hurry to make his bus on time. "I'm just kidding, boy," he says, and Benny always has this way of making himself seem older than he is, like right there when he's calling Mark a boy even though they're the same age. Benny is more responsible though, more into school and life outside of some hobby like filming. Mark doesn't understand how he hasn't come home to find Benny hanging from the light fixture. All that work in school and he'd have to kill himself. "I saw the way you were drooling down Elisa's shirt. Course, even a gay dude could get a hard on looking at those breasts."  
  
"I wasn't drooling," Mark says, zipping up his bad and going to grab his camera. He promised Roger's band that he'd snap some photos that they could use for posters with their upcoming shows. He promised to even make the posters up here, if they would get him into the clubs for free. Of course, Roger would have gotten him in, anyway, and Mark would have done the posters no matter what. "You should come down with me one of these weekends."  
  
Benny shakes his head, like Mark know he would. He offered it anyway, because even though he can over study a lot, he's still a nice guy. Better than the film society that Mark joined, thinking it be cool to meet some great people and ending up meeting a whole bunch of snobs with their heads up one collective ass - mainly the professor who over sees it. "Some of us are here only by the graces of a scholarship," Benny says, and with the way he talks it's no wonder he impressed Mark's parents like he did when they moved him into the dorms.  
  
"Yeah, yeah," Mark says as he gets all his shit together, swinging the bag over his shoulder. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with Rebecca Schultz."  
  
"Did you know her family practically invented Starbucks?" Mark did know this, mainly because last night at the floor party a very drunk Rebecca had told them about it some five hundred times. Mark hadn't even been really sure what the coffee shop was, not being a big coffee person, until this girl drove it into his head again and again and again. Benny, on the other hand, seemed to be fascinated with her and it is still unclear to Mark if that is because of her family or her low cut shirt that kept slipping down.  
  
"What's up with this weird yuppie princess fetish?" Mark asks as he grabs his scarf and jacket. Winter break is looming around the corner, and Mark wishes it weren't so close. That meant going home, which is the last thing on his mind anymore. Oh, well. He can't exactly stop time, and he's always sort of liked the cold and coming back to a warm house or dorm or whatever.  
  
"What's up with your rock star fetish?" Benny fired back, laughing as Mark flips him off.  
  
"Fuck you," he says as he heads for the door, glancing at his watch to make sure he isn't late for the bus. You think at this point, the drivers would know to stop and wait for him.   
  
"Does Roger know you sleep around?" Benny yells, and Mark can still hear him laughing even as he has closed the door and takes off dashing for the stairs.

  
*

  
The second Mark gets into the city he heads right towards the loft Roger is squatting at. The band must already be waiting for him, because it's Amelia, the drummer's girl, who opens the door. "Hey," he says, trying to move past her but she just stands in the doorway, giving him an odd look. Mark finally gives up trying to get by her, sighing softly. "I'm Mark."  
  
She still just stares, as if she isn't sure she can place him. Finally, something seems to get through that mess of hair of hers and go off. "Oh. Yeah. Roger's boyfriend, right?"  
  
Mark frowns, looking down at his clothes. They don't look particularly gay. He is open minded, really, and knows that not everyone who is gay dressed in leather and fishnet or skirts. Still, he doesn't look like he's gay, does he? Why is he letting this bother him so much, anyway? So one girl that he isn't even going to date or try it with thinks him and Roger sleep together. That isn't hurting anyone, and it isn't like Mark is afraid of people thinking he could be gay.  
  
"I'm not gay," he says, and this time he just sort of shoves by her without waiting for her to get out of the way. She's probably stoned out of her mind. Has no idea what she is saying. Drugs, Mark found, can make you do weird things like assuming someone is gay or jerking off your best friend.  
  
"Mark!" Before Amelia can try and kick Mark out or ask him for fashion tips, Mark's breath is being taken away. Very literally, in that he is being pulled to Roger in such a tight hug that he can't seem to get air into his lungs. "You brought your camera, right?"  
  
"Glad to see you, too, Roger," Mark says, pulling away and drawing in a deep breath to refill. Roger has always been the type of guy to touch and hug and be sort of, in a word, girly. Mark prefers being in the back, or at least not jumping on ever friend of his that gets too close. Especially with Amelia looming to the side, watching them like they're trapped behind a Plexiglas cage at a zoo. "And yeah, I brought the camera."  
  
When they break apart, Mark punches Roger in the shoulder. He isn't sure if it's supposed to be manly or something, but Roger gives him an off look. "You okay?" he asks, rubbing his shoulder where Mark had cuffed him.  
  
"Err...."  
  
"Anyway," Roger says, turning to get the rest of the band from the empty practice room they have gutted out. "Get your camera, okay? The guys just want to get through this as quick as they can."  
  
To the side, Amelia still looks mildly confused. Mark avoids her eyes as he goes into the practice room with his camera out and winding. He gets into the room, snapping as many pictures as he can as the guys try to direct themselves around, laughing and hitting goofy poses, beating each other up with drum sticks and humping their guitars. It isn't very professional, but Mark is laughing the entire time. Hard enough that it's hard to get a steady focus for some of the pictures.  
  
"Thanks for that," Mike says as they're leaving, Amelia tucked under his arms and laughing about something. Probably, Mark thinks, the drugs. Not how close Roger is standing, leaning over with his arms propped up on Mark's shoulders, looking at his band mates from over Mark. "You gonna get those posters to us by Next NEXT Friday, right?"  
  
"Right," Mark agrees, nodding and wondering how he can get Amelia to stop giggling. He should probably knock Roger off, but he seems really comfortable. "Come down to get it to you guys, I promise." Mike and John wave goodbye, and Mark can still hear Amelia laughing from out in the hall way. "She's high, right?" he asks, twisting his head back to look up at Roger.  
  
He just sort of smiles, and there mouths are so close Mark can almost taste his breath. It's more than a little unnerving. "Maybe... I don't know. She's sort of new."  
  
"Yeah," Mark says as he wiggles out from under Roger's arms and starts packing away his camera again. If it weren't for some film festival, he could get them here by next weekend, but with that and midterms and all of those phone things, he has to take a little longer. That means a whole week without coming down, and Mark is pretty sure he's going to end up going crazy.  
  
He's almost got the camera put away when Roger grabs his arm, kind of stopping him. "Wait. I want you to take some pictures of me and my acoustic."  
  
Frowning, Mark looks down at his camera. He had to replace the roll towards the end, so he has more than enough film left to snap some of Roger and his other guitar. "Yeah, sure. Not a problem," he says. Roger flashes him a smile and goes into the bedroom with Mark padding along after him. He isn't quite prepared, when he gets to the bedroom, to see Roger taking his shirt of, tossing it back and covering Mark's head with the smelly, torn up old thing.  
  
"Hey!" Mark gets a whiff of the shirt before throwing it into the corner. "Don't you ever shower?" It's meant to be a biting remark, but when he looks up again to see Roger's hands fluttering over the top of his jeans... Well, he gets kind of distracted. "Umm... You're stripping."  
  
In retrospect, it's a bit obvious and he probably didn't need to say it like that. Roger makes it perfectly clear when he laughs out loud, and he must be high on something because Mark knows that laugh. It's a laugh that straight or gay or bi or whatever, he fell in love with when he was sixteen. "Yeah," he says, and there goes the zipper of his jeans; lower and lower and lower. "Guess I am."  
  
Mark's eyes follow every single tick of the zipper as it goes down. "Yeah," he says, and there is something wrong with his voice, too soft and dark as he watches Roger's stomach rise and fall with his breathing. "You are... Did... Did you want a picture of this?"  
  
Roger laughs again, and there is this light tint to his already gorgeous voice when he's on something. "Looks like you might want it."  
  
Licking at his lips unconsciously, and it isn't his fault they're dry, he focuses the camera on Roger and takes the shot. One shot of the rock star with his cock smile, leaning back as his hands tug down his jeans. "I don't know if you're going to be able to use that on a poster," Mark says, and he's use to this sort of playfulness between them, even though it always seems to leave both of them a little nervous. Only not Roger. Not today. He's all confident and smooth and whatever the hell he is on, Mark could really use some.  
  
"I thought," he says, and there go his jeans. "Maybe naked, with my guitar in my lap." He sits back on the bed, hips arching up and there is another picture of Roger spread out in his boxers and, yeah, Mark has no excuse for taking that one expect that Roger really called to have a picture taken off him.  
  
"It's not exactly cutting edge," Mark admits, lowering the camera so that he can watch without distortion as Roger slips out of his boxers. "But... Uh... Not... Not..." He keeps losing his train of thought, which might have to do with how Roger is leaning back, exposed before him and with this know it all smile. "Not, uh...Main... Main..."  
  
"Mainstream?" There is this amused rise in Roger's voice. Goddamnit, it isn't like Mark has never seen him naked before. It is just that usually Roger seems just as nervous as he does, like it they touch something will go all wrong. Now Roger just keeps beaming at him like he can see right through Mark. It's unnerving. "You're hard."  
  
That isn't what Mark needs to hear to calm him down. "Maybe... Yeah." Not like he can do much to hide it if Roger knows, and there are no girls in sight to blame this on. Just Roger, spread out over the bed, naked. Mark hates him right now. For being beautiful. For being confident. For being high.  
  
For smiling at Mark like that. "I could suck you off." There is nothing romantic about it. Not some hidden offer or a relationship or any of the shit you might get with a girl. Simple question; his best friend is offering to suck him off because he's hard, and there isn't anything else to that. Simple answer; Mark says no because even though it's clean, no strings sex he's still straight.  
  
"Umm..." He starts to set the camera down. To run for it, no doubt. "Yeah, okay." It isn't what he means to say, and it comes out stumbled and jumbled in his own mind.  
  
"Don't leave the camera," Roger says, and somehow Mark's body has moved forward and he's close enough for Roger to hold. To reach out and grab the camera from him as Mark crawls to the bed. Roger is pulling him forward still, and their mouths end up against one another. It tastes less like pot than that first time, and Roger's lips are rough and the kiss harder than most girls Mark has kissed. It's good enough that Mark lets Roger push him against the bed and doesn't seem to realize that time has passed at all.  
  
Out of it enough not to realize when he's been undressed, and Roger is handing him his camera again and smiling. "Do your thing," he says, and Mark has to try and shake away the haze to figure out what he's being asked to do.  
  
"Wh-" Roger's tongue slides against his cock, and at that moment Mark no longer cares what he meant. His hands tighten around the camera until the small, black metal gently cracks in his knuckles, a soft click going off and the flash light illuminating Roger's tongue as it laps at Mark. Small, short strokes around the head, down the length. And Mark is lying there, not sure if he can move at all while Roger, his best friend, closes his mouth around his erection.  
  
"Roger..." His hands tighten and the flash goes off again, showing Roger between his legs with his mouth sliding lower. "Roger..." He isn't sure what he wants. Not for Roger to stop. Not for that warm, wet mouth to let him go. That is one of the few actual thoughts he manages to cling to when most of them are flying out on him. "Ro... God, Roger..." And his name ends up turning into a moan, broken be a small whimper and breath as Roger's teeth gently scrape down his length, lips wrapped at the base and Mark is photography all this. Roger's closed eyes and bruising lips as he twists down around Mark, moaning and making his body shot up.  
  
It's messy and fast, and before he can come Roger pulls back and strokes him off. It doesn't really matter, because Mark ends up coming with a scream, feeling his entire body snap as the pressure does. And Roger is kissing him again, tasting dark and faintly disgusting as Mark's tongue slides into his mouth. Roger's fingers curl around his hand, leading it down Roger's chest and stomach. Leading him to finish that two year old hand job in his room.  
  
This time, the boys spend the entire weekend uninterrupted. 

  
*

  
He doesn't expect anything.  
  
Don't get Mark wrong. He isn't some sort of slut that just sleeps with anyone - any guy - that offers him a blowjob. He has standards. Like knowing their name and that they're sober enough that they aren't going to puke on him. Even if a guy met those standards, Mark would probably say no just because, well, he's straight. An expect, about the being straight and the being sober, where made for Roger.  
  
That's different, Mark convinces himself. Roger is his best friend. It wasn't like it was meaningful relationship sex. It was a fluke of a weekend. Just friends getting each other off, and boys do that sort of thing all the time without it meaning anything at all. It will probably never even happen again.  
  
Benny laughs his ass off when, two weeks later as he packs for his trip, Mark makes sure to stuff condoms and Vaseline into his bag. "What is this? Marathon week?" This time, Benny gets a whole shoe thrown at him.  
  
Still, Mark doesn't really expect anything to happen. Just, well, what if they get bored? It will give them something to do? Mainly fuck like rabbits.  
  
When he gets to New York and runs to the loft, Mark isn't looking forward to anything more than another weekend with his best friend. Probably go to his show, hang out with his hand, do that thing he did with his tongue last time that Mark would never actually do to anyone else cause it seems gross but - fuck, it feels good. Okay, maybe not that far. Just a normal weekend.  
  
The loft is answered by some small, beautiful girl. "Hola," she says, stretching herself out. It should be noted that she's naked, and Mark is still a teenage boy, and she's naked, and he's been thinking about sex all day, and she's naked. If he looked up, he would see her smiling. "You're staring."  
  
"You're naked." It isn't the smartest thing a guy has ever said to a girl before, but she isn't wearing clothes.  
  
"I'm April," she says, laughing gently at him. Probably not gently, really, but that is what it sounds like because Mark can't quite - Breasts, right there. With nother between them. Does she just not know that she's naked? "Who are you."  
  
"Err...." Again, not the wittiest statement available to him. How is it fair that he should go from thinking of sex, already working himself up, then seeing this beautiful naked woman in front of him, and on top of that she's spoke to speak up. "Mark... I'm Roger's... Umm... Friend." That would have all been much easier if she was wearing clothes.  
  
On cue, Roger comes into view of the doorway, and he's naked as well. This isn't as pleasing as Mark figured it might be, and it doesn't take long to put two and two together. Or, in this case, boy and girl together. Naked.  
  
"Hey." It's Roger's first word to him, but at the time he's wrapping his arm around April, kissing her. "Hey, this will only take a second."  
  
She lights up for him, twisting in his arms and smiling brilliantly. "Promise."  
  
Roger smiles back, rubbing their noses together. It's the sort of thing that, if Roger did it with him, Mark would probably collapse from laughing so hard. "Of course, baby." They snuggle some more and kiss, and then April turns and disappears back into the bedroom. Just like that. Leaving naked, happy, attached Roger and a very clothed, single Mark.  
  
Who isn't disappointed.  
  
Because he didn't expect anything.  
  
"Do you have those posters?" Roger asks, leaning against the doorframe and apparently undisturbed that he's naked and April had been parading around in front of Mark. Maybe not parading. Here, opening Roger's door when he knew that Mark would be over. Is a week and a half really all it takes to forget all about their weekends?  
  
Mark takes the bundle of posters and flyers from his backpack, handing them over without a word. He isn't really sure what to say or think about this, and the look of concentration on trying to figured himself out must be clear, or at least Roger has spent enough time around him to pick up on it. "Something wrong?"  
  
Mark shakes himself out of it, or pretends to anyway for the sake of not making an idiot out of himself. "I was just wondering how fun our weekends is going to be, when you're spending all of it fucking."  
  
This doesn't count the last weekend of fucking, which doesn't count at all towards anything.  
  
"Hey," Roger says as he takes the posters. There is something weird about him. No touching or hugging. Hardly any smiling at all. He seems paler, some how, more at ease with himself. Last weekend times a hundred. "We don't have to spend every weekend together, do we? It's not like we're boyfriend, right?"

  
*

  
"I don't get it." Maureen's voice is louder than the pounding in Mark's ears, and at the moment that is a very difficult thing to do. So difficult that Mark is surprised by his own restraint not to start screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming until the sound of his heart pounding is killed off.  
  
Mark doesn't show any signs of self-combustion as he packs his dorm up. Only nods along with what his girlfriend is saying. Never mind that other than the high pitch, he's not hearing a single word at all.  
  
"Let me suck you off with another girl," Maureen could be saying, and Mark wouldn't hear it at all.  
  
He tunes in and out of her ranting and raving, and every now and then he picks up a phrase or two to figure out when to nod and when to just stay still altogether. "So this one guy who you haven't talked to in YEARS."  
  
"YEAR, singular." That is Benny, being helpful. Helping Mark pack. Packing his own things. Everyone is packing and leaving and oh God, oh God, oh God. He's praying to someone he doesn't even believe in. He might as well be praying to a toaster. But no, through everything years at the temple come back, and now Mark is praying to God again, one last time, and if He do this right Mark will go back to the synagogue and everything.  
  
Yitgaddal v'yitqaddash sh'meh rabba... Shit, he doesn't remember anymore. He isn't even sure what he's saying. He could be thanking God for a fucking dead cat. He wouldn't know.  
  
"Fine," Maureen snaps back, totally undisturbed by her boyfriend's panicked thoughts. "Yout haven't seen him in a YEAR and then all the sudden he calls up and you go running to him? Dropping out of SCHOOL to be with him? What he is your boyfriend or something? You'd tell me if you were gay, right?"  
  
Mark figures this is one of the places where he needs to nod, and he does. A simple nod, and it seems to get Maureen to shut up for half a second. Half a second where he can hear it again. Beat. Beat. Beat. Beat.  
  
Beat.  
  
"Mark, I need you..."  
  
Beat.  
  
"Mark, please...."  
  
Beat.  
  
"I'm dying...."  
  
Benny takes the box from Mark, unpacking it and starting again. "I think it will be interesting," he says, trying to support Mark for something they all know is insane. Even Maureen, who dropped out of NYU and came up here to be in some acting troupe or something, seems to know how insane this is for Mark to just be packing up and leaving without even trying to finish the school year. It has to be insane, because the second this old friend called up everything else got pushed aside and now he’s abandoning his entire life for him. They can all see how utterly crazy this idea is. The only one who hasn't figured it out is Mark.  
  
Fuck. He's insane. He knows he’s insane. That is the only viable explanation for why he has to get to Roger. Now.   
  
"Of course you would think that,” Maureen says, pouting at Benny. She’s never gotten along so well with Mark’s roommate. Maybe because he never once tried to flirt with her, but Mark would never say such a mean thing about the girl he loves. Only right now, his spiraling out of control thoughts aren’t really able to stop themselves. He could justify it later. “You're girlfriend is rich as hell. You'd think it was interesting if he moved to Moscow to be a sheep herder."   
  
Maureen's voice, even while arguing right over Mark, has stopped blocking out the blood beating around inside his skull. This loud and horrifying roar of his heart as it gets closer and closer to being stuck in his throat, trying to strangle him.  
  
Beat.  
  
"April...."  
  
Beat.  
  
"She killed here..."  
  
Beat.  
  
"Left a note..."  
  
Maureen's arms are smooth and gentle as they glide around Mark, resting on his shoulders. "Why do we have to go down there, anyway?" She asks, and even without seeing her Mark can hear the pout in her voice. He loves Maureen. Loves her more than he thought he could like someone without them being attached to his camera, and right now he'd like nothing more than to stab her.  
  
Then again, he is running off to Roger after having ignored him for a year for no good reason, expect that one weekends not to hang out because every weekend not to hang out. He's insane, and that really is the only good reason for it. Maureen is smarter than Benny gives her credit for.  
  
"Mark?" Maureen says, sweeping hair away from his face. "Mark? Pookie, why are we going? Really?" Because even after everything, Mark is still Roger's best friend. More than boyfriends, really, even if no one seems to understand that. Not even Roger. "What about that film you're working on? You're just going to stop it for this one guy?"  
  
"It will be fun," Mark promises, and why is his voice still shaking even three hours after getting off the phone with Roger. Benny is hovering over his shoulder, calling up their philosophy teacher and explaining they can't make it to the restaurant to upset society today, because Roger has gone and upset their entire lives and Mark just let it happen. "Anyway, you guys don't have to come down with me."  
  
Not that Mark wants to leave his friend and stunningly beautiful and energetic girlfriend behind, but maybe he'd rather have them stay than watch him and Roger together. It is going to be awkward enough, he imagines, being around roger again. Pretending there isn't a year of not talking (and drugs, it turns out, and sex and all those things that Roger broke down about on the phone) between them. Then to bring Maureen and Benny along, it almost feels like he's rubbing something into Roger's face.  
  
"Of course we're coming with you," Maureen insists, tightening her hold on Mark like she's refusing to let him go. Mark should find some comfort in that, instead of just feeling like he's being smothered. "We couldn't just not come with you. I just don't see why you have to drop everything for this guy."  
  
"It's Roger," Mark explains and to him this makes all the sense in the world. That is all anyone would need to know about why Mark has to do this, no matter what else happened between them. "I just have to."


End file.
